Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

“ Eastwards, behind the hills or over the sand, there is in most parts of the country a wide undulating plain, broken here and there by the limestone outcrops. Here the sun beats down from a vast sky, and the traveller feels himself but a fly crawling upon a brazen table. In all directions the desert stretches, until, in a leaden haze, the hot sand meets the hot sky. The hillocks and points of rock rise like islands from the floods of the mirage in which they are reflected; and sometimes there are clumps of withered bushes to tell of the unreality of the waters. ”

“ In the afternoon one rides onwards, and perhaps a hazy view of the granite hills may now be obtained in the far distance ahead. The sun soon loses its strength, and shines in slanting lines over the desert, so that one sees oneself in shadow stretched out to amazing lengths, as though the magnetic power of night in the east were already dragging in the reluctant darknesses to its dark self. Each human or camel footprint in the sand is at this hour a basin filled with blue shade, while every larger dent in the desert’s surface is brimful of that same blue ”

“ The nights in the desert are as beautiful as the days, though in winter they are often bitterly cold. With the assistance of a warm bed and plenty of blankets, however, one may sleep in the open in comfort; and only those who have known this vast bedroom will understand how beautiful night may be. If one turns to the east, one may stare at Mars flashing red somewhere over Arabia, and westwards there is Jupiter blazing above the Sahara. One looks up and up at the expanse of star-strewn blue, and one’s mind journeys of itself into the place of dreams before sleep has come to conduct it thither. ”

“ A ride of about half an hour’s length brought us to some ruined huts where the ancient quarrymen had lived in the days of the Pharaohs. From this point onwards for perhaps a mile the rocks on either side are dotted with inscriptions, from which a part of the history of the valley may be learnt. The place is full of whispers. As the breeze blows round the rocks and up the silent water-courses it is as though the voices of men long since forgotten were drifting uncertainly by. One feels as though the rocks were peopled with insistent entities, all muttering the tales of long ago. ”

“ Nowadays should one stand upon the mounds which mark the site of the ancient city of Elephantine, and look east and north, one would feel that modern civilisation had hidden for ever the scenes of the past, and had prevented the imagination from re-picturing the place as it was in the elder days. The huge Cataract Hotel overshadows the ruined city, and stares down from its pinnacle of granite on to the tumbled stones of ancient temples. ”

“ At dawn, at noon, at sunset—all day long—this fortress in the Wady Abâd is beautiful; and for those who love the desert there is here and in its surroundings always some new thing to charm. The walls of the enclosure, and beyond them the [166] pillared portico of the temple sheltering under the rugged brown cliffs, form as delightful a picture as may be found in Egypt. As one sits in the blue shadow one may watch the black-and-white stone-chats fluttering from rock to rock, and overhead there circles a vulture, as vividly coloured as those which form the ceiling decoration in the temple. ”

“ There will come a time when one will travel to the quarries by automobile, for even the present road is hard-surfaced enough to permit of that form of locomotion, and with a little doctoring it will be not far from perfection. A place such as this wonderful valley, with its whispers and its echoes, seems to beckon to the curious to come, if only to be lost for awhile in the soothing solitudes and moved by the majestic beauty of the hills. ”

“ One of the peculiar charms of these hills of the Eastern Desert is their impregnation with the atmosphere of a shadowy adventurous past. One’s mind is conscious, if it may be so expressed, of the ghosts of old sights, the echoes of old sounds. Dead ambitions, dead terrors, drift through these valleys on the wind, or lurk behind the tumbled rocks. Rough inscriptions on these rocks tell how this captain or that centurion here rested, and on the very spot the modern traveller rests to ease the self-same aches and to enjoy the self-same shade before moving on towards an identical goal in the east. ”

“ In the future one may picture the energetic tourist leaving his Luxor or Cairo hotel, whirling over the open plains where now one crawls, rushing through the valleys in which the camel-rider lingers, penetrating to the remote ruins and deserted workings, and emerging breathless on to the golden coast of the sea, to wave his handkerchief to his friends upon the decks of the Indian liners. ”

“ Setting out on a journey towards the Red Sea one rides on camel-back over this rolling plain, with the sun bombarding one’s helmet from above and the wind charging it from the flank; and, as noonday approaches, one often looks in vain for a rock under which to find shade. Naturally the glaring sand is far hotter than the shady earth under the palms in the cultivation; but the stagnant, dusty, fly-filled air of the groves is not to be compared with the clear atmosphere up in [7] the wilderness. There are no evil odours here, breeding sickness and beckoning death. ”

“ Consciousness returns quickly and gently, points out the aspect of the night, indicates the larger celestial bodies, and as quickly and gently leaves one again to the tender whispers of sleep.
When there is moonlight there is more to carry the eye into the region of dreams on earth than there is in the heavens; for the desert spreads out around one in a silver, shimmering haze, and no limit can be placed to its horizons. The eye cannot tell where the sand meets the sky, nor can the mind know whether there is any meeting. ”

“ In this remote desert how easy it is to dream oneself back in the elder days! The valley, pressed close on either side by the rocks around which the whispers for ever wander, echoes once again with the ring of the chisels; and in the wind that almost ceaselessly rushes over the ancient tracks, one can see the fluttering garments of the quarrymen as they pass to and from their work. As we sat at the door of our tents in the cool of the afternoon, the present day seemed now as remote as the past had seemed before ”

“ In the dimness of coming sleep one wonders whether the hands of the sky are always just out of reach of those of the desert, whether there is always another mile to journey and always another hill to climb; and, wondering, one drifts into unconsciousness. At dawn the light brings one back to earth in time to see the sun pass up from behind the low hills. In contrast to the vague night the proceeding is rapid and business-like. ”

“ Looking towards the north, the road which led eventually to Lower Egypt was to be seen; to the west the eye wandered over the undulating wilderness to the far horizon, made awful by the presence of the Dead; and to the south the sand-drifts and the rocky hillocks hid the untravelled paths to Aam and the Land of the Ghosts. Keeping the river on the left hand, it seemed to the Egyptians that they might here pass over the upper desert as far as the gods permitted men to penetrate ”

“ Above one the white clouds go tearing by, too busy, too intent, it would seem, on some far-off goal to hover blushing around the sun. The light fades, and the camp is pitched on the open plain; and now one is glad to wrap oneself in a large overcoat, and to swallow the hot tea which has been prepared over a fire of the dried scrub of the desert. ”

“ The Upper Egyptian desert is a country known only to a very few. The resident, as well as the visitor, in Egypt raises his eyes from the fertile valley of the Nile to the bare hills, and lowers them once more with the feeling that he has looked at the wall of the garden, the boundary of the land. There is, however, very much to be seen and studied behind this wall; and those who penetrate into the solitudes beyond will assuredly find themselves in a world of new colours, new forms, and new interests. ”

“ There is a lethargy over the desert which contrasts strangely with one’s own desire for activity under the influence of the sun and the wind, and of the records of ancient toil which are to be observed on all sides. It must be that we of the present day come as the sons of a race still in its youth; and in this silent land we meet only with the worn-out remnant of a people who have been old these thousands of years. ”

“ Lean-faced, hungry-eyed, and rather upright in carriage, one may expect them to be quick-witted and endowed with common-sense. Yet of all stupid people these unwashed miseries are the stupidest; and as one sees them at the starting of a caravan, muddling the ropes, upsetting the loads, yawning, scratching themselves, squabbling [94] in high, thin voices, and tripping over their antiquated swords and long guns, one’s dream of the Bedwin in this part of the desert fades and no more returns. ”

“ Then in the warm, perfect stillness, with the whole wilderness laid prone in that listless haze which anticipates the dead sleep of night, there came—at first almost unnoticed—a small, black, moving mass, creeping over an indefinite hill-top. So silently it appeared, so slowly moved nearer, that one was inclined to think it a part of the dream, a vague sensation passing across the solemn, sleepy mind of the desert. Presently, very quietly, the mass resolved itself into a compact flock of goats. ”

“ Trotting on for another two hours and a quarter, we camped under the rocks of the Gebel Timsah, a well-known landmark to travellers. A head of rock projects into the level valley, and upon it the people of the desert for untold generations have set up small heaps of stones, the original idea of which must have been connected with religious worship. The two tents were no sooner pitched than a gale of wind, suddenly rising, tore one of them down, and almost succeeded in overthrowing the other. ”

“ One may pass through the narrow doorway of the fortified enclosure, and in the silent area where once the soldiers and miners camped, and where now a few goats graze, one feels completely shut off from the world of the present day. The dark walls rise around one almost to their full height, and one may still ascend and descend the sloping ramps where the sentries paced in the olden days. Here there are the ruins of the temple [147] where the vulture-goddess was worshipped; and yonder one sees the mounds of potsherds, bricks, corn-grinders, and all the débris of a forsaken town. ”

“ For a short distance one may follow the paved road now, as it passes southwards and westwards amidst the blackened rocks and golden sand-drifts of this lifeless land; but presently it tops a deeply shadowed ridge of rock and sand, and so descends into, and is lost amidst, the wide, undulating desert, ablaze with the light of the setting sun.
There are not many persons who will find themselves able to follow the road by camel, as I did, or to take ship up the Nile, to Arthet, in order to see the terminus of the first part of the highway. ”

“ The time must surely come when the owners of automobiles in Egypt will sicken of the short roads around Cairo, and will venture beyond the [27] garden wall towards the rising sun. Whether it will be that the re-working of the gold mines and the quarries of ornamental stone will attract the attention of these persons to this wonderful wilderness, or that the enterprising automobilists will pave the way for the miners and the quarrymen, it is certain that some day the desert will blossom with the rose once more, and the rocks reverberate with the sound of many voices. ”

“ The wide flat plain, shut in by the distant hills on all sides, entices one from the fortress on to its sparkling surface, though the tumbled rocks near the temple soon call one back to their breezy humps and shady nooks. The hundred surrounding hill-tops vie with one another in the advertisement of their merits, and one attains a summit but to covet a further prospect. Or, attracted by the two or three trees and the few bushes which grow in the plain over against the fortress, one walks to their welcoming shade ”

“ If one only possessed the ability, one might weave such a magic carpet for those who knew how to ride upon it, that, deserting the fallen Jericho of their habitation, they would fly to the land of the invaders which they had seen, and there they would be kept as spell-bound and dazzled by the eyes of the wilderness as ever a child was dazzled by a tale of the sea. ”

“ As the hills fell back on either side we passed on to the wide, flat beach and headed our camels towards the blue sea, dismounting at last a hundred yards from the rippling water. Except for the slow pulse of the waves there was an unbroken silence over the world. Southwards the sand stretched to the foot of the hills, beyond which rose the dreamy peaks of the Tourquoise Mountains; northwards the little town of Kossair lay basking in the sunlight ”

“ It is only the wind and the effect of the contrast between the exposed and the still places sheltered by the rocks; but, with such a history as is writ upon its walls, one might believe the valley to be crowded with the ghosts of those who have suffered or triumphed in it. ”